Confidence in the voting system is the very bedrock of democracy. And anything that diminishes or damages that confidence should be avoided.
It is regrettable that plans by the Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen, to introduce an electronic voting system for the local and European Parliament elections, next June, could undermine public confidence because insufficient weight has been accorded to the concerns of interested parties. In the circumstances, the Minister - and the Coalition Government - should re-examine the possibility of providing an additional, checkable record of votes cast in polling stations.
Mr Cullen yesterday defended his plans in a series of interviews that coincided with the launch of the Government's €4.5 m. publicity campaign about the system. Electronic voting had already been used by 400,000 voters in a national referendum and in four Dáil constituencies, he said, and no political party had questioned its accuracy or integrity on those occasions. The new system would be more accurate, he insisted, and it had been verified by experts in Germany, the Netherlands and the UK. The Minister failed to convince. And he invited a constitutional challenge by revealing that a citizen who wished to spoil his or her vote, as a protest, would no longer be able to do so in secret.
There is a general acceptance that electronic voting and counting will replace the paper-based, blood-on-the-floor election counts that have been a feature of multi-seat proportional representation in this State. But the transition must be as seamless as possible. And public confidence must be retained. The Comptroller and Auditor General, Mr John Purcell, advised the Committee of Public Accounts that because the integrity and security of the voting system was fundamental to the exercise of democracy, machines and their operating softwear should be subject to the most rigorous and comprehensive testing regime. Last December, the Oireachtas Committee on Environment and Local Government asked the Minister to suspend all further investment when it heard evidence from computer experts that security considerations required the system to be radically modified.
In spite of these concerns and representations, Mr Cullen has maintained a gung-ho attitude to the introduction of electronic voting. He has resisted demands from the opposition parties to wait until all the recommended safeguards and protections have been put in place. Such a concession might be politically embarrassing as well as costly. But public confidence in the voting system is a delicate and irreplaceable component of our democracy. No hint of impropriety can be allowed to undermine public confidence in the Oireachtas or in any future government.